Sunday, October 5, 2008

McCain's New (old) Stragegy

One of the weakest parts of the McCain campaign has been its lack of a consistent message or strategy.

From reports in the press and the tenor of Governor Palin's remarks yesterday, the new strategy seems to be ignore the issues, don't talk about why we should vote for Senator McCain, just try to convince America that there is something wrong with Senator Obama. Perhaps he is even not really patriotic.

Governor Palin attacked Senator Obama because he recieved support from William Aires back in 2000 and 2001. Apparetnly working with a man who did some really wrong things when Barack was 8 years old proves that Obama is anti-American or something. Its almost inevitiable that they will start talking about the Reverend Wright pretty soon as well.

I actually kinda like this new approach. I think it appeals to the base but will alienate exactly those undecided moderates and independents that Senator McCain needs to win. They are thinking about the economy and what they see from Senator McCain is taking another shot at attacks on McCain that were old news 6 months ago.

This is a return to McCain's original strategy that worked so well he dropped it months ago, but its all they have to its back

What ever happened to McCain's promise to run an honorable positive campaign?

As an aside, its funny to watch Governor Palin drag up William Aires from Senator Obama's past after repeatedly criticizing Senator Biden for looking back when the Senator would talk about the failures of the Bush Administration and McCain's simliarities to Bush.

8 comments:

I think that 2000 is recent enough history to bring up without being accused of dragging up the past. I agree that we can't blame Obama for things that Ayers did when Barack was 8...I can blame however for continuing to associate with a man that has no regrets over what he did when Barack was 8. You my want to check out the "No Regrets" article in Chicago Magazine in 2001 (complete with the picture of him treading the American flag) in which he says he wished he'd planted MORE bombs.

This guy was his first fundraiser, served on 2 boards with him and is an unapologetic domestic terrorist. It at least indicates (along with Rev Wright, his FannieMac connections and others) that he is an absolutely horrendous judge of character. Am I overstepping on that?

His FannieMae connections are grossly overstated by the McCain campaign, probably as a way of diverting attention from McCains own much more direct Fannie Mae connections.

William Ayers is unapologetic about his past, but everythign I have seen indicates that his relationship with Barack is being overstated, but there was a relationship there. This relationship is probably more of an issue for me than his membership in Reverend Wright's church. But its clearly not a deep or current relationship. By all accounts, they haven't had muchy if any contact since about 2002.

The issue about Reverend Wright is a complete distortion. Reverend Wright, despite the occassional excesses of his rhetoric, ran a church that did lots of very positive and important things in its community. If you want to judge the Reverend by the few excertps of his sermons you have seen, then go ahead. But I think you should also consider the actions of his life. This is a man who joined the military to fight for this country when most in this country still treated blacks like second class citizens. He built up his church, not through is rhetoric, but through the programs that the church ran that worked well for the community. The concept that a 60 something black man in this country might still carry some anger at the way he and most blacks were treated should not be suprising. But if you want to judge the Reverend Wright, and through him Barack Obama, then you need to look at the entire picture of Reverend Wright's career, not just a few incendiary clips from a few sermons.

The inevitable result is that Obama will respond by bringing up the Keating 5, an admitted failure of judgement by McCain directly. No guilt by association here. This will be a direct discussion of McCain's actions. Obama won't bring up the way McCain treated his first wife, though clearly he could. Obama probably won't bring up McCain's active pursuit of the endorsement of two preachers who said things equally as offensive as the Reverend Wright. Not long after getting their endorsement, John McCain had to repudiate them and their comments and refuse their endorsement.

So each side can play the look into you past and find ugliness game.

McCain seems far more willing to play that game. It may be all he has left.

But it has little to do with the problems facing America right now. Its a distraction from the dicsussion they should be having about how they would address the immediate problems we face and structural changes they would put in place to ensure they don't/can't happen again.

I'd say that Obama's connections to Fannie Mae are much more significant than are McCain's. His connections are to the CEOs who made millions from their stints and in turn made Obama the 2nd highest recipient in the Senate of contributions from those organizations after less than a full term in the Senate. McCain has a few aides who were lobbyists. Surely you understand that being a lobbyist is a job... Fannie Mae comes to them and pays them to talk to people on their behalf. It isn't necessary that they personally believe in the cause. Individual lobbying firms take clients from all over the political spectrum. I'm sure that all of Harry Reid's kids who are lobbyists have done so for a variety of clients too.

This Ayers thing may indeed be overstated but don't tell me that Obama didn't know what Ayers was about when he got involved with him in 1995. to be honest if Obama didn't know why Ayers was a celebrity then he is a moron (which I don't believe) and isn't fit to even look at the White House, let alone live there. Ayers is a revolutionary and a sociopath. He was when they met and he still was when Obama threw him under the bus to advance politically.

About Rev Wright, I am not criticizing him for the sound bites alone. I am not a fan (from a political, social or theological standpoint) of the Black liberation theology that he espouses. I am absolutely willing to praise Wright for any wonderful things that he and his church have done in the community but I will not accept that as the only byproduct of his work. This is a man who has no problem associating with Kadaffi during his prime terror period, has allowed allegations in his church publications that allege that the US and Israel are creating an "ethnic bomb" which only effects Arabs and blacks and continues to be the antithesis of the uniter that Obama claims to be.

Answer me this, if it was only the 10 or 12 sound bites that are the issue, why did brave Barack through him under the bus? The reality is that after 20 years sitting in Wright's church, he knew that what was preached there was offensive to mainstream America.

Yes, I can understand the frustrations of a man who spent his early years suffering disrespect and inequity but what I can't understand is that same man living in a Mcmansion in luxury and continuing to espouse the line that this nation is still out to get the black man. You say he's angry about how blacks WERE treated (as should we all be) but the majority of what I've seen is in regards his belief that this is still a majority racist nation.

Let's also recall that men like Thomas Sowell, Walter Williams and Clarance Thomas faced the same hurdles and not only succeeded but did so without the hateful commentary (and probably in smaller houses).

There's a term that people on the left like to use for folks like me... where they perceive that I don't merely disagree, but demonize their opponents and focus attacks upon the person not the idea - hatemonger. If you look at what I've said about Wright and check the media for what Wright has said about me (as a conservative white person) I think you will see who is the hatemonger.

Keating 5? I guess we can chalk that up as something that we can all agree was wrong... I guess we could call it McCain's Fannie Mae? Now we're even. hahaha.

I still contend that in a short career, associations with Ayers and his wife (terrorists), Wright (see above), Rezko (hustler/frauster), Farrakhan (self-explanatory) and Khalidi (antisemite) give me a good idea of what kind of people would be advising him in the White House.

Ok, seriously. I love playing this game but it's starting to affect my work. I apologize for not being able to respond to every post or rebut some of your comments but I will jump in when I can. Thanks for the debate.

The contributions that are identified as being from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are all INDIVIDUAL contributions. Barack has not accepted any PAC contributions from anybodies PAC's, including Fannie or Freddie.

So several thousand individual contributors decided to give their support to Senator Obama and to you that means something. I am not sure what. Understand that the $2million that he has recieved in individual contributions from Fannie/Freddie employees represent less than 0.5% of his total contributions. Not much in today's terms.

Senator Obama hiself has not connection to any Fannie or Freddie executive including Frank Rains. Reports circulated that stated the Mr Rains was somehow an advisor to the Obama campaign, something that has been denied unequivocally by both the campaign and Mr. Raines.

Senator McCain, on the other hand, employs several former Fannie/Freddie lobbyists high in his campaign staff.

Both Senator McCain and Senator Obama warned about parts of this mess 2 or 3 years ago. They didn't act together and neither warning led to actions by Congress or Regulators that might have helped control this disaster.

Despite the fact that Senator Obama got 0.5% of his donations from individual donors associated with Fannie/Freddie, he doesn't have any relationship with those organizations or their leaders. Senator McCain employes former lobbyists for Fannie/Freddie high in his campaign organization.

I understand the difference between PAC and individual contributions. Here is why it's irrelevant:

FreddieMae folks deal in government backed loans. The conditions by which they can lend and thus their livelihood is dependent upon legislators like Obama. If in the processes of sabotaging our economy (unintentionally I believe) they as individuals felt that Obama would act in their best interests and they either supported him to that effect or bought his corporation with donations.

Also, I believe that people at an organization who give to a candidate do so via an organized fund. If they were giving in a completely private capacity their employer would likely not be known.

As to the official connection, Jim Johnson was a very close Obama advisor and on the VP committee. That is CEO to close advisor, not peon lobbyist to staffer.

The fact that Obama is raising and spending money like water now, thereby minimizing the percentage given isn't that relevant since his FreddieMae dollars came when he was in the Senate before he was a cash cow candidate.

I am also tracking some investigations that are looking into a significant number (though still a small percentage) of those $15-$20 gifts may have been given en mass under false names by some smaller number of donors in excess of the maximum.

I gotta be honest, I don't have any messianic illusions about McCain's purity but I think your guy is dirty.

Oops, I am familiar with the concept but messed up on the phrasing. Please disregard my inaccurate paragraph #3.

While he appears not to have received money directly from their PAC, since he hasn't disclosed the employers of his list of bundlers to any watchdog groups, I guess we may never know from whom those big checks came.

Bundlers are not able to disguise the identity of the donations they bundle. Each bundled donation would have to list the name and employeer of the donor, and the fact that it was collected by a bundler.

http://www.opensecrets.org/index.php

This is a link to an organization that takes the FEC data and publicizes it.

Jim Johnson was a poor choice for Obama's VP vetting team and was only on that team for 7 days. There is no evidence that I have seen that he has in any other way advised the campaign.

At the same time John McCain's campaign Manager was a lobbyist for Fannie Mae. One of his economic advisors was the director of Fannie Mae's lobbying program. His campaign's Vice Chairman and its Congressional Liason also lobbied for Fannie Mae. One of the members of McCain's VP vetting team was a Fannie Mae Lobbyist and atleast 20 of his fundraisers lobbied for Fanny Mae.

And somehow in that you see a strong connection between Fannie Mae and Obama?

I'm a bit on the busy side and since I respect your integrity, I will have to concede your claims regarding the FMers in McCain's camp.

I still argue that lobbyists are professional advocates hired to function on a company or industry's behalf. Like a criminal defense lawyer (another shady group in the bag for Obama) they need not agree with the entity for whom they lobby. I don't particularly like this mercenary system but that is how it works in DC.

As to the link you provided, read their report from which I got the info about Obama not releasing the information on his bundlers... third paragraph.

Maybe the only FM money they can track is that of high profile employees like the last 3 CEOs on his bandwagon. I'm telling you, he's not as squeaky as you are portraying him. Oh and the count is up to 9 states investigating voter fraud by ACORN in democratic precincts.

You many want to look at the dem's efforts to block the Justice Dept from applying the section from the Clinton era motor-voter law requiring counties to purge bloated voter roles.

Rhetorical questions... Why would a party have a vested interest in keeping dead, absent, criminal or fraudulent voter registrations? Why is ACORN et al paying good money to shady characters with daily quotas to further bloat voter roles? In 3 months 90,000 new registered voters in Nevada alone? I'm not buying it. Sounds like Chicago, eh?